Keep It Ugly

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

We will be relocating just down the street to http://www.efballard.blogspot.com/. The reasoning behind this is: I started this blog a while ago.. after I watched Julie & Julia. I used my mom's email address. It makes it confusing to log in, using her email and password. But, you can expect the same updates and stuff from the new address.

Monday, September 19, 2011

I wish it was November. I just really wanted to write this book. And anyway, if I get it done, then I can move on to another book for NaNo. I do want to do NaNo this year, and I bet I will, but the idea that I'm nursing for November isn't quite what I want it to be. My MC is a bit.. Mary-Sueish and that is bothering me. I don't have a full plot arc yet; I have it set up until the rising action is over, then there's this big gap where the climax and falling action should be, and then the ending is in place. This is a HUGE problem. You can't have a story with a beginning and end only-- you need a middle. Think about it! What would a PB&J sandwich be without the peanut butter and jelly on the inside?

But anyway. I bet I'll get a killer idea when November rolls around. And, if I don't, maybe I should wait until Camp NaNo comes around again. Or just write when I want to. But I like feeling the pressure of a due date, all those daily goals, weekly rewards, and the time when you type the last word and lean back and go, "Take that. I did it."

I remember when I first found out about NaNoWriMo. I was in that stage of young writerdom when you start things easily, but don't finish. I had about.. twenty to thirty open projects with nothing close to a climax, let alone an ending. I was wandering about on the forums of the sharing website I used, and found a link to NaNoWriMo. I had to be about ten or eleven at the time and I read about it and I thought, "Wow! This looks fun! I bet I could do that!" I told my mom about it and she laughed at me. "You'll never be able to finish!"

Take that, Mother.

Not only did I finish, I finished twice.

Anywho, DHAN is going well. Just finished the first chapter and I'm ready to start number two. It's about 14 pages now, which totals up to 5115 words. I'm in absolute LOVE with this project. It's like a new addition to the family or something. One thing I don't think people understand about writing is that, when you create something like this, it really becomes something like your child. You raised it from nothing and you don't want anyone to hurt it. You want to love it to death. Maybe I should word this in first person, not second, because that's how it is for me. But if anyone slammed my book, I'd probably cry, because it's like slamming a part of me, and my child.

My family as of now:
Give and Take (currently being reworked slowly)
Insomniac
DHAN

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I was three. At home, with my parents. My sister was about one and a half. My other sister was nonexistent. We were shephered out of the living room, away from our small television set, as the towers were struck and until they fell.

Life went on. I was oblivious. Preschool came and went; as did kindergarten. And then, we come to first grade at Van Allen Elementary with Mrs. Davis.

It was circle time. We all came to the carpet at the front of the room and she took her seat at the front. I remember, I sat on the edge, by one of my friends. She told us that we were going to make a banner for troops going to Iraq. I remember someone asking, "Why are they going?" "How long will they be gone?" And that was when I figured out what happened. As she told the story, in terms that would not harm a child, I learned that the Twin Towers fell. For a long time, I thought that they were still there. I learned that there were people who wanted to hurt us. It was there, in Mrs. Davis' first grade class, that I learned what happened. I also was told that the war in Iraq was supposed to end when I was in fourth grade. Well, I'm in eighth grade now, and it is still raging on in the Middle East.

For the first time on the ninth, Friday, in my ELP (Extended Learning Program) class, we watched the towers get struck, North first, South second, and we watched them burn. I was right up front. Then, after a few minutes of watching the scorching buildings, hearing only the static of silence, we watched them fall. Then, when it was over, a question was asked: "Does anyone have anything to say?" No one said anything. And I buried my face in my hands and I cried. I tried to gather myself, but it was so hard. It was the first time I've seen that footage. I had never seen it before, and it has been ten years. My best friend and I sat, side-by-side, both crying. Afterwards, we had to write about it. My hands were shaking and I wrote, "There are no words. The only one that comes to mind is complete and utter disbelief."

I've been told that I'm hopelessly emotional. I've been told that I cry a lot. I've been told that I'm very mature. All of these things are true. I cry at a lot of things, because there are certain things that move me. And I hate crying, but I cry. This day, even ten years later, moves me to tears because of all the lives that were lost. The sheer magnitude of the loss that America endured on that day. I didn't know anyone personally in those two towers, but I can say that just the idea that their children didn't get to say goodbye, that their wives and husbands will live on without them, that they died in such an awful way, and some were never found... it makes me cry just thinking about it. And why shouldn't it? Death is so final, so abrupt, that we could never comprehend what to do if it were to come for us. Would you sacrifice yourself, or another? Is that how I want to be remembered? Am I going to die today, right here?

Rest their souls, those that died. All 2,983 of you. You are not forgotten. In your honor, we became one, one nation, one race, one mind, one body, unified. You are missed. You are loved. You will never be forgotten.

Stay thoughtful.
Stay unified.
Stay commemorating.

Keep it ugly.

♥

You're not in this alone

Let me break this awkward silence

Let me go, go on record

Be the first to say I'm sorry

Hear me out,

And if you take me down

Or would you lay me out

And if the world needs something better

Let's give them one more reason now, now, now

We walk in single file

We light our rails and punch our time

Ride escalators colder than a cell

This broken city sky like butane on my skin

stolen from my eyes

Hello Angel, tell me where are you

Tell me where we go from here

This broken city sky like butane on my skin

Tell me we go from...stolen from my eyesHello Angel, tell me where are youTell me where we go from hereAnd in this moment we can't close the lids on burning eyes

Our memories blanket us with friends we know like fallout vapors

Steel corpses stretch out towards an ending sun, scorched and black

It reaches in and tears your flesh apart

As ice cold hands rip into your heart

That's if you've still got one that's left inside that cave you call a chest

And after seeing what we saw, can we still reclaim our innocence

And if the world needs something better, let's give them one more reason now

Saturday, September 10, 2011

I know it's still the tenth, but I don't care. Let's make time today to remember the fallen. Remember the heroes, the victims, the leaders, the hopefuls. The ones who died for another. The ones who died in innocence. Have a moment of silence. It doesn't have to be much. Just take a little time for all those people who never got to say goodbye. All those people who were just going to work. All those people who never suspected anything. All those people.

I don't care if you believe in God or Allah or Budda or nothing at all. Give these people your thoughts. They didn't deserve to die.

Monday, September 5, 2011

My life is perfect. I feel like this is a shot to the Man. It says, "Hey, guess what? I will not conform. I am an individual, not a clone for the whole. I am amazing, and with one look, you know that I know I am. Go ahead and judge, because you don't know me."

Pictures to come. Right now, I have to deal with some squabbling siblings.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Really upset with the MCRmy right now. Leave Pedicone alone. He stole from the band, he got kicked out. He doesn't need death threats or hate. MCR has moved on, it's our turn to do so too.

KTWGS has a new title: Death, Heat, and Nirvana. Not the band. A nirvana is: a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world. So, yeah. I do love Nirvana, the band, but I love the word too. It shall be refered to as DHAN if I get too lazy to type it out.

Working on a fanfic of my friend's story to pass time. Harry Potter marathon ensues.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Now, I just had this major breakthrough thing where I realized that no one needs to like who I am, only I do. Anyone else is a bonus. But I was looking around for the past two and a half weeks at my school and finding out, wow. I wonder how many of these people are actually true to themselves. You can tell that I don't care, but I can also tell how much that these other people do. For instance, I was voicing my opinions about the feathers-in-the-hair trend going on, asking why you would want a fake piece of down clipped into your hair. Why pay money for it? I mean, honestly. If you like it, fine. Go ahead and do it. Just don't expect me to say that I love it. Well, I know this girl (no names) and she doesn't need to follow all these trends. Underneath this exterior of wanting to be like everyone else is this amazing girl with a voice and an opinion and a great future, but she's suffocating herself with all the things everyone else is. She told me she was getting a feather and I plainly asked, "Why?" "Because everyone else has one and I want one too."

If she wouldn't have said the first part of her answer, I would have been fine. But she did, and I practically exploded in her face. Granted, I was not in a good mood that day, so I probably went a little extreme, but really. "Everyone else has one" is not an acceptable answer. Being a trend follower makes you nothing but unoriginal. You can't come up with your own look. It's sad, really, to see all these clones walking around my school. I know plenty of the "benders" as I like to call them, but I know even more of the "clones" and even a few "Barbies". It's really making me lose faith in humanity's creativity.

But those rule-breakers, most that I know at least, are usually the most broken themselves. I know some who talk to me about suicide and I try to make them see that who they are and being so helps people, usually using myself as an example. If I didn't have other benders with me, I would probably fall apart and succumb to the world of feathers, Hollister, and :gulp: mainstream music. But I didn't because the benders never left me and I will never leave them. I just wish they knew just how amazing they were.

Even if you aren't a clone of those people that you see online or on the television, it doesn't mean you aren't beautiful. Everyone has something beautiful about them. I can find something in everyone, so you can find something in yourself, because you were meant for something. I have no idea what I believe in at the moment, but I know that everyone has a purpose. You will be happy some time, some day. I can promise you. Just love yourself, because you're absolutely worth it. You always have been. You are beautiful. Stay that way.